Chapter 61: Cultivation

It seemed he had guessed part of the truth about this ability, and even the panel had acknowledged that his current understanding was correct.

But why didn't he have this ability?

After learning that this ability was something all intelligent beings inherently possessed, Baichuan was puzzled.

Could it be that he couldn't yet be considered an intelligent being? Or was he rather special?

Fair enough — possessing a heaven-defying ability like the panel, it would make no sense if there weren't something special about him!

Baichuan nodded in understanding. He didn't dwell on it; as the saying goes, when the cart reaches the mountain, there'll be a road; when the boat reaches the bridge, it'll naturally straighten out.

Whatever his doubts were, he'd know once he grew stronger in the future.

Just as many things he hadn't known before had gradually become clear with his growth.

He shook his head, then carefully picked up the Compass with one claw and hooked the cloth bundle with the other as he slowly left.

In his current heavily injured state, he figured he'd have to stay here temporarily for a few days.

In that case, he should find time to clean out the cave.

……

The next day.

After a night's rest, Baichuan found that the pain in his tail had eased considerably.

However, the price he had to pay was being ravenously hungry all over, his stomach burning like a ball of flame.

That was hunger! His body was telling him it urgently needed food.

True enough — yesterday he had only eaten one deer, yet he had consumed a massive amount of energy.

One had to know that whether it was his own venom, Ice Frost, or the panel, they all required energy.

Fortunately, he could now basically fully absorb the energy from food.

Baichuan could tell this from the panel, which had already increased by 50% in points.

After supplying the energy needed by every part of his body, he could still save up an extra 50% — his digestion and absorption ability was truly extraordinary!

At the current pace, with sufficient food, he could now gain one point every two days.

Truly worthy of a crocodile's innate talent!

After marveling for a moment, Baichuan could no longer resist the hunger and left the cave, crawling toward the forest.

Soon, he spotted a herd of deer.

But before he could get close, a gust of wind blew past, and the herd alertly raised their heads and began to flee.

Seeing this, he was stunned and instinctively looked around.

There were no other creatures around.

He then lowered his head to examine his current form.

Right, he was in an invisible state, so why…?

A sweep of his gaze revealed his snake tail, which was still faintly aching — the scales there were broken, the flesh a tender pink, with dried blood foam still faintly visible.

Well, he understood the situation now: the wound's blood smell was simply too strong, so strong that the deer herd had caught it from far away.

As for why he hadn't noticed, it was like the saying: enter a market that stinks of salted fish, and after a while you no longer smell the stench.

It seemed he'd have to give up hunting on land for a while, or go back to eating his old acquaintances — like the Jianwenfu currently hiding not far from him.

Baichuan smiled inwardly and turned his head to look. Following his gaze, on the surface there seemed to be nothing else there, just a pile of dead leaves.

But if one looked carefully, one could faintly make out an odd clump of dead leaves within, with a small corner of one leaf sticking up.

That was the never-lowered snout tip of the Jianwenfu.

Speaking of which, it had been a long time since he'd eaten any of these snakes.

Baichuan thought absently.

True enough — who would still bother eating those tiny little snakes after tasting all kinds of delicious, meaty large animals?

But now that he was injured, it seemed he'd have to go back to eating these things.

Jianwenfu — Baichuan seemed to recall the one that had dared to attack him back then.

Only now did he realize that perhaps it hadn't been bold enough to attack him, but rather that the noise of his hunting had accidentally disturbed it.

After all, the Jianwenfu was a venomous snake known as the fatty of snakes — once it picked a spot, it wouldn't move a step unless circumstances were special.

Thinking about it, the reason it had dared to attack him back then was probably that his body had touched its attack range, or he might have even accidentally brushed against another snake…

While pondering, Baichuan slowly approached this slightly plump little snake coiled into a ball.

Mm, a snake just over a meter long was indeed a small snake in the eyes of a seven-meter-long snake; swallowing it would only serve as a pre-meal snack.

Baichuan glanced at the Jianwenfu's ever-proudly-raised snake head, ignoring its body that was beginning to panic and try to uncoil.

He simply extended his sharp claw and grabbed it directly, lifting it up like a rope.

In an instant, this action seemed to offend the Jianwenfu. It immediately arched its body, raised its dangling snake head, and bit down hard on Baichuan's claw.

But its movement froze. Its snake head twitched slightly, as if it had bitten something as hard as steel.

Seeing this, Baichuan laughed — of all places to bite, it had to bite his claw.

Didn't it know his claws came from an eagle? Which eagle's claws would fear a snake's bite? Anyone looking closely could see they were covered in a thick, hard keratin layer and fine, dense small scales.

And now look — it had broken its own venom fangs.

That's right, this venomous snake had stupidly bitten down so hard that it broke its own venom fangs.

After a moment of amusement, Baichuan simply gave it a release — grabbing its snake head and tearing it off — then swallowed it whole.

Feeling it still wasn't enough to fill him, he thought it over and decided it would be easier to just go into the water to hunt.

After all, with the Electric Discharge ability, in water — a fluid with especially excellent conductivity — as long as he spotted a big fish from afar and was willing to release current, he could still shock it.

Even if the big fish was stunned, even though he was slow, he could still leisurely go over and claim it.

At worst, if the big fish got away, the stunned small fish and shrimp could serve as pre-meal snacks.

Having made up his mind, Baichuan turned around and crawled toward the river.

……

In the afternoon, having eaten and drunk his fill, he returned to the cave and settled down to rest.

In his current injured state, moving around was a troublesome affair; better to rest well and let his bones heal quickly.

And with this stop to rest, another five days of Time passed.

By now, Baichuan's points had returned to 3 points. At the same time, from the Compass Bug obtained off Zhang Dadan, he had scanned out its specific ability model.

Unfortunately, the ability was of little use to him for the time being.

Because the Strange Insect had only one special ability: every day it would secrete a special liquid, and if this liquid was eaten by other creatures or smeared on various objects, no matter how extremely distant the distance, it could easily sense them.

Unfortunately, for him at present, it was useless!

Besides that, the injuries on his body had mostly healed, only the tail area still had some pain that affected his movement.

Perhaps it was a case of a hundred days for damaged sinews and bones — bone injuries always healed the slowest.

(End of this chapter)